Sketchup, 2D Objects and normals on the default plane
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Hi guys. The way sketchup handles normals by default has been causing some hassles for me. At the moment, I do a lot of modelling that goes into a 3DS max workflow. After a bit of experimenting, the main issues seems to be that on the default plane, 2D objects have the normals flipped the wrong way.
At the moment, I'm using Vertex by Thom Thom to find instances where faces are incorrect and TIG's Fixed Reversed Face Materials to correct them. Because I'm naturally using a lot of sub-groups in my workflow to keep things neat as possible, I've found that I have to go into each group to fix the normals which can be very time consuming process, especially because you need to check the normals on each on usually. There seems to be no way to check normals by default. I've been using shortcuts to counter this, but I cannot help but feel the best fix would be if 2D objects just had the normals facing the right way.
I've attached a screenshot below that illustrates this. Once a 2D object turns 3D, it's not an issue. The second plane has been flipped along the Blue Direction and is correct
Obviously this isn't an issue for the majority of sketchup users, but I cannot help but feel the best resolution would be if the default modelling tools didn't do this or flipped along blue by default.
I was wondering if anyone had any insight to share on this issue or if we're stuck with 'fixes'. The only thing I can think of is that you just have to keep an eye on the 2D objects when you're modelling them to flip them along the right when being drawn.
Another issue I suppose is that Sketchup doesn't know what faces are orientated correctly, e.g if you have they already have a back material applied, and you use a plugin to reverse all the faces, it's also going to reverse those faces too.
Edit: At the moment I'm using Fredo's Reverse Orient Faces tool with TIG's Click Back face to flip which works well if the back colour is set to like a bright green or something.
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@shpox said:
Hi guys. The way sketchup handles normals by default has been causing some hassles for me. .......
When talking about normals, are you referring to normals created by Ruby or are you talking plain SketchUp language? I really can't see what the problem is.
SketchUp draws its new separate rectangles following strict "rules" for each orientation.
Each face will have its front face and thus also its back face produced predictable in the modeling space. Normals like in your example are just a matter of where you begin drawing, the input value etc. This is all plain SketchUp so can you elaborate or tell me that I'm completele missing the point and that this is about Ruby language? -
SketchUp is primarily a 3D modeller. As such when you draw a rectangle on the ground plane as in your example, the expectation is that you'll make that 3D and so it places the outside or front face down. The blue faces is expected to become the inside of the bottom of the 3D shape. There's nothing wrong with that.
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